OAKLAND — A national wildlife animal protection organization is offering $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who fatally shot a raccoon with a crossbow over the weekend.

The 15-pound adult male animal was found Sunday stumbling in the parking lot of a church at 10th and Center streets in West Oakland, said Lisa Franzetta, spokeswoman for the Animal Legal Defense Fund of Cotati, the agency offering the reward.

Franzetta said someone had shot the raccoon five times with high-impact aluminum bolt darts from a crossbow.

Good Samaritans found the animal and brought it to WildCare, an urban wildlife hospital in Marin, where medical staff removed four high-impact darts from soft tissue and a fifth from its skull — a wound that doctors determined was inevitably fatal.

The animal was sedated, and survived until a doctor put it down about midafternoon.

“He would not have survived with the severity of the malicious injury,” said Kelle Kacmarcik, director of wildlife solutions at WildCare.

The animal had been attacked relatively close to the church, she said, shortly before it was found.

The raccoon”s body has been sent to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife for a necropsy.

Under state law, it”s illegal to intentionally inflict cruelty against any animal. Violators can face jail time and a $20,000 fine.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund is offering a $5,000 reward for tips in the case. Anyone with information about the case is asked to call Oakland Animal Services at 510-535-5602.